The floor manager was perhaps in his late forties. Tall and broad-shouldered , his built suggested that he had been a sportsman in his youth, but excess flesh was now beginning to accumulate on his belly and chin . His short, stuff hair was thinning at the crown ,and a special ageing bachelor smell clung to him - like newsprint that had been stored in a drawer with cough drops. She had a bachelor uncle who smelled like that.
The manager always wore a black suit ,white shirt ,and bow tie - not a clip on bow tie but the real thing, tied by hand.
It was a point of pride for him that he could try eat perfectly without looking in the mirror. He performed his duties adroitly day after day. The consisted of checking the arrival and departure of guest , keeping abreast of the reservation schedule , knowing the names of regular customers , getting them with a smile, lending a respectfully ear to any complaints that might arise , giving expert advice on wines , and overselling the work of the waiters in the waitresses. It was also his special task to deliver to the room of the restaurant's owner.
" The owner had his own room on the sixth floor of the same building where the restaurant was , ' She said ,' An apartment,or office or something.'
Somehow she and I had got on to the subject of our twentieth birthdays - what sort of day it had been for each of us. Most people remember the day they turned twenty. Hers had happened more than ten years earlier.
' He never, ever showed his face in the restaurant, though. The only one who saw him was the manager . It was strictly his job to deliver the owner's dinner to him. None of the other employees knew what he looked like.'
'So basically, the owner was getting home delivery from his own restaurant.'
' Correct. She said. Every night at eight, the manager had to bring dinner to the owner's room . It was the restaurant's busiest time, so having the manager disappear just then was always a problem for us, but there was no way around it because that was the way it had always done. They'd load the dinner on to one of the carts that hotels use for room service, the manager would push it into the lift wearing a respectful look on his face, and fifteen minutes later he would come back empty handed. Then , an hour later, he'd go up again and bring down the cart with empty plates and glasses. Every day, like clockwork. I thought it was really odd the first time I saw it happen. It was like some kind of religious ritual, you know? But after a while I got used to it , and never gave it another second thought.'
The owner always had chicken. The recipe and the vegetables sides were a little different every day, but the main dish was always chicken. A young chef once told her that he had tried sending up the same exact roast chicken every day for a week just to see what would happen, but there was never any complaint. A chef Wants to try different ways of preparing things, of course, and each new chef would challenge himself with every technique for chicken that he could think of. Thayd make elegant sauces, theyd try chicken from different suppliers ,but non of the efforts had any effect: they might just as well have been throwing pebbles into an empty cave. Hindi and everyone of them give up and send the owner some run of the mill chicken is everyday. That's all that was ever asked of them.
Work started as usual on her 20th birthday, 17 November . It had been raining on an of since the afternoon ,and porting since early evening.At 5 o'clock to manager ke dard employees together to explain the dash specials. Servers were required to memorise them word for word and not to use crib sheets: veal Milanese, pasta topped with sardines and cabbage, chestnut mousse.Sometimes the manager would play the role of a customer and test them with questions. They came the employee's meal: waiters in this restaurant will not growling to have growling stomach as they look their customers orders!
The restaurant open store at 6 o'clock but case to a slow to arrive because of the downpour and several reservation werevsimply cancelled. Women did not want to their dresses ruined by the rain. Manager walked around tight lipped, and waiters skills time polishing the solved and paper shakers or chatting with the chef about cooking. She surveyed the dinning room with just one couple having their dinner and listened to the harpsichord music flowing discreetly from ceiling speakers. A deep smell of late autumn rain worked it's way from the street..